


Pendulum

by notthisagain



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-10-05 11:57:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10306922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthisagain/pseuds/notthisagain
Summary: Some people look at you, some people see you, and some people see through you.She thinks he sees through her. He's not sure he's ever seen her at all.College AU where Jughead is (still) struggling to get over Betty after she and Archie get together. A Jeronica semi-slow burn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is my first ever fic so I hope you like it and I'm sorry for inconsistencies/OOC-ness etc!
> 
> I love pretty much every single ship in Riverdale so I hope all the characters come off okay. I wanted to do a Jeronica fic that acknowledged how serious Bughead probably is for Jughead, and how much Betty and Archie matter to him. I hope Betty and Archie don't come off too badly in this, I really didn't want them to seem mean or cruel.

It hadn’t been the worst week of his life, but it hadn’t been a particularly good one either. No, the worst week was two semesters ago, the fall of sophomore year when The Great Heartbreak happened, i.e., Betty Cooper broke up with him. There had been some weeks the semester after that weren’t so great either, but somehow the universe had decided that this was the semester he was supposed to be over Betty, and he wasn’t entirely sure how that had happened.

 

Actually, it wasn’t just the universe that had decided this, but Archie and Betty, specifically, and they’d done so by falling for each other over the summer they’d spent in New York together. On Monday, Archie had sat him down to talk to him about it, to be upfront, and if it had been anyone but Archie, Jughead would have wished a thousand plagues on the guy who was doing it to him. But it was Archie, and he was upset, and he knew how much this would hurt Jughead, and he wouldn’t go forward with it if Jughead didn’t want him to, but he liked Betty, for real, and he wanted to take her out on a real date.

 

In the end, Jughead could only nod his head because his throat felt hoarse. He got lunch with Betty on Wednesday to talk about it, and the little smile on her face when she said Archie’s name told her everything he needed to know to be okay with it happening, because it would make her happy, and that was all he’d ever wanted, really. Didn’t mean he’d had to be happy about it, though, and he wasn’t.

 

But it wasn’t a good start to the semester, and it was especially not a good start to a semester that also included the first few chapters of his novel getting a real critique, and not an altogether pleasant one either. “Great use of language,” his professor had said. “I don’t get the point of Adrianna, though. What’s her character doing there? I felt like it threw off the whole plot, and she didn’t really do much.”

 

Jughead had gritted his teeth, and nodded, because even worse than getting that kind of feedback was the fact that he agreed. Adrianna was the pseudonym for Veronica Lodge, and he wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing in his life either. She’d swooped into their lives as a transfer student, Betty’s new roommate and self-proclaimed best friend, looking like she’d been cut out of a magazine and lazily pasted into Riverdale U. He wondered how was his novel supposed to make sense of her if he couldn’t make sense of her, always at the center with a sarcastic quip or a big idea, yet seeming like she was somehow a million miles away. The first time he met her, when he was still with Betty, he saw her dark hair and red lips and pearls and high heels, and he saw the way Archie looked at her, and he thought _femme fatale_. Dangerous.

 

“Give her a chance,” Betty had said, but he had, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t done much of anything to deserve it. She’d hooked up with Archie for a month and a half, causing him to be sexiled on a Tuesday for the first time in his life, then she’d abruptly ended things, causing Jughead to have to listen to more sad guitar music and crappy rhymes for “Veronica” than he’d ever heard in his life for the next couple weeks. And though he couldn’t prove it, he had the feeling she’d been somehow involved in Betty breaking up with him. He’d always felt the weight of Veronica’s gaze on him, the feeling that behind her dark eyes she was sizing all of the ways that he wasn’t good enough for Betty, and pulling her away from him. There was nothing to prove it, but Jughead had been watching ever since, looking for the cracks in her facade, trying to catch her in the act, trying to figure her out, and—nothing. She didn’t give anything away, and she didn’t give much of anything to Jughead either, and in spite of countless lunches and dinners and pregames together, he found no reason to think that her posture and her pearls and her always-perfect hair had any place in their lives. She seemed like she was just acting the part of being at Riverdale, biding her time. She was dangerous, and she was bound to destroy something else.

 

Now she was ruining his night, too.

 

It was a Friday, the night of Archie and Betty’s first official date, and he’d dragged himself to Trev’s birthday party in an attempt not to sit around and mope or obsess over his novel. But Kevin Keller had grabbed him by the shoulder and told him that he needed his help, he’d lost Veronica, the last time he’d seen her she’d been taking shots with Josie, who could handle her alcohol way better. And Kevin was supposed to walk her back to Cheryl’s where she was staying the night, but she’d vanished and he’d run into hot Joaquin from Linear Algebra, and could Jughead do him a favor and find her to make sure she was good to get to Cheryl's.

 

Jughead wasn't particularly excited about this turn of events, but if he didn't help, he knew Kevin would complain about him cock-blocking for months, and besides, he'd been about to head out anyway. So Jughead polished down the Solo Cup of bad keg beer, pulled his hat down on his head, and poked around for Veronica. When he couldn’t find her on a quick scan, he decided to check the bushes outside and then walk home. Veronica could take care of herself. He didn’t see her, but as he crested the hill by the science building, his hands shoved in his pockets despite the fact that it was a balmy night, he’d seen a figure sitting on a bench with her head leaned back leaned with her head back. He quickened his pace.

 

“Veronica?”

 

She turned her face towards him as he sat down next to her. Her eyes were sleepy looking and she said slowly, “Jughead, hello.”

 

“Are you okay? Kevin was looking for you.”

 

“I’m fine.” She was drunk. “Started walking to Cheryl’s when the world started spinning. Stopped to rest. Tequila shots and heels don’t mix well.” She tried one of her patented Veronica Lodge Smiles on him, all red lips and white teeth, but she’d been drinking, and he’d seen her use it too many times to fall for it.

 

“Cheryl’s is another half mile from here. Why don’t you just go home?”

 

She exhaled, puffing her lips out, and looked up at the summer sky. “I gave Betty the room.”

 

“Ah,” he said, and the knots that had been filling his stomach since his conversation with Archie turned into snakes. He looked up at the sky too, not sure of what else to say. They sat there in silence, and he began picking out constellations that his mom had showed him. Orion. Cassiopeia. The Pleiades.

 

“Jughead, why do you hate me?” The question came out of nowhere, and he turned to look at her, but she was still staring placidly up at the sky. Her voice hadn’t been sad or soft, she’d asked it just like she’d ask him about how his novel was going.

 

 _What the fuck kind of question is that_ , he thought to himself, and said the answer he knew he was supposed to say, especially to a drunk girl. “I don’t hate you, Veronica. Let’s get you to Cheryl's.”

 

He moved to stand up but she reached out, more quickly than he thought she’d be able to move in her state, and grabbed his wrist. “No. I mean it.” She turned to look at him, and her dark eyes were heavy upon him, impossible to read. “I know you don’t like me. I can tell by how you look at me.”

 

He made a vague noise of protest, but she kept speaking. “Chuck and Reggie and them, they just look at me. And Betty and Cheryl and Kev, they see who I’m trying to be. But you see through that." She paused for a moment, and said, more softly, "What do you see?”

 

He had no answer, and he suddenly felt his heart banging in his chest. He wondered if she could feel it in his wrist— her thumb was over the pulse point. He just looked at her, at her parted lips, and the smear of mascara on her cheek, and her eyes which were impenetrable but also somehow open, and she just looked at him, calmly, taking in his face like it was the answer he was giving, reading it slowly. He had a thought that he couldn’t quite articulate, maybe _Veronica Lodge is opaque_ , and maybe, _who the hell talks like this when they’re drunk_ , and maybe a third thing he didn’t fully know.

 

Veronica’s cell phone rang, and she scrambled to dig it out of her jacket pocket, dropping his wrist. Jughead rubbed where she’d grabbed it— she had a grip like a vise— and took a deep breath. The thought, whatever it had been, was gone, and Veronica was talking to Cheryl.

 

“No, no, I’m fine, I’m on my way. Yes, I’ll be there soon.” She glanced over at Jughead. “Uh, Jughead. No, no. It’s fine.” Her eyes were back to their usual guarded state now, and he told himself he’d imagined the whole thing. “That would be awesome, Cher, if you don’t mind. Ok, see you soon.”

 

She hung up and turned to Jughead. “Cheryl’s going to meet me at the science building in her car. She says you should walk me, but you don’t have to.”

 

Jughead smiled thinly. “I’ll walk you. I’d rather not incur the wrath of Cheryl.” So he walked her the short distance over to the science building, where Cheryl’s car was waiting. They didn’t talk, and his mind re-played the conversation they'd just had, but was too emotionally exhausted and confused to figure it out. He looked at the stars again, and she looked at the ground.

 

When they got there, she smiled at him over her shoulder as she got in the passenger seat. “Thanks, Jughead. Have a good night.” The fake smile, all teeth.

 

He walked home and laid down in his bed, the snakes in his stomach having turned back to knots, trying not to think about Archie and Betty. Right before he went to sleep, his mind flashed back over Veronica’s words (“You see through me. What do you see?”) and he had a slight jolt in his stomach that was different than the knots, and as he drifted off, the words of the thought from before came to him. _Maybe I never really saw her at all._

 

He forgot, of course, in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here was a secret about her: she didn’t like it when people didn’t like her. Not all people, of course, there were plenty of people who she preferred to dislike her, and even more still who she didn’t care about at all. But then there was the subset of people who mattered, and those were the ones who she wanted to like her. At the top of the list was, of course, Betty, then Kev, Cheryl, Archie, and Josie quickly fell in line. And somewhere in there was someone who somehow mattered, whether she wanted him to or not.
> 
>  
> 
> Jughead Jones. She refused to say “The Third.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, wow, thank you so much for the kind comments and kudos on the last chapter!!
> 
> This one is from Veronica's POV, I hope I do her justice. A little Reggie/Ronnie there at the end for all of you as well because Reggie's my fave (they are all my faves).
> 
> Updates might be a little slow in the coming weeks because of school but I'll do what I can!
> 
> (Also, I decided: Ronnie=poli sci major, Betty=chemistry major, Kevin=econ, Jughead=english/creative writing (duh), Archie=music major with a potential double major in business or something. Cheryl is probably a math major, tbh. We can argue about this.)

Veronica Lodge woke up with a headache and a deep feeling of shame.

 

Here was a secret about her: she didn’t like it when people didn’t like her. Not all people, of course, there were plenty of people who she preferred to dislike her, and even more still who she didn’t care about at all. But then there was the subset of people who mattered, and those were the ones who she wanted to like her. At the top of the list was, of course, Betty, then Kev, Cheryl, Archie, and Josie quickly fell in line. And somewhere in there was someone who somehow mattered, whether she wanted him to or not.

 

Jughead Jones. She refused to say “The Third.”

 

She’d known he didn’t like her from the first time they met, when Betty had introduced her new roommate to her then-boyfriend. She had seen the slight sneer at the edge of his lips as he gave her the up-down, and the way that he glanced at the door the entire time they’d been talking. At that meeting, and at the next subsequent ones, she’d chalked the whole thing up to the standard high-school-sad-boy-still-recovering-from-jealousy-and-trauma-when-encountering-a-hot-girl. But despite her best charms, the slight sneer had persisted, and she’d gotten the feeling that he was just waiting for her to leave them all alone. Like just because she wore Louboutins and lipstick, she wasn’t worthy of being Betty’s friend, or of being with Archie, and that eventually she’d find her people and they could all go back to the way things were. It made her curl her lip up instinctually the next time she saw him roll his eyes at her impatiently. _Tough luck, Jones_ , she thought. _I’m not going anywhere_.

 

But the secret to winning a war like that was not letting on that you cared, or that you knew at all. You had to act above it all, and in that moment on the bench, Veronica knew she had given up her trump card. As she sipped her coffee, black, in the passenger seat of Cheryl’s car that morning, she thought of a game plan. The best game plan, she finally decided, was no game plan at all. Pretend it had never happened. The best way to save face was to act like you had nothing to be embarrassed about at all.

 

To her immense relief, Jughead did not seem bent on using it against her in any way, and seemed happy to treat her with the same derision and sarcastic humor as before. She watched him to see if there was any subtle change in how he sat or moved when he was around her, any indication that he felt like he’d gained more power in the relationship (body language was key), but there wasn’t. Once, at lunch, while she was watching him watch Archie and Betty, he swung his gaze over to meet hers. His eyes were blue and intense, and she could tell in that moment that she was far from his first concern. She almost broke his gaze, but Veronica Lodge did not flinch. He looked away first.

 

Archie and Betty, by the way, were doing great, in the kind of way that made them almost insufferable to be around. It wasn’t that Veronica still had feelings for Archie (that had been short, and a long time ago, and she had made the decision to end things) and she’d never seen Betty so happy (she’d missed the beginning-of- _Titanic_ stage of the Betty-Jughead relationship and had walked right into the end-of- _Titanic_ phase). When they were together though, they were just so happy with each other that it was hard to be the third, or even the fourth person in the room, especially if the third person was Jughead.

 

She kept bumping into Jughead, though, in the moments after that interaction. She was working in her office one day on the top floor of the library when she saw him walk by the door, and then swing back to do a double take. He opened the door. “What are you doing up here?”

 

“Office hours are on Tuesdays only,” she replied, not looking up from her laptop.

 

He looked around the room, which was where she did all her work. She liked having her own space, and she’d always found that it was difficult to do work in her bedroom. She always ended up online shopping instead. “How many buildings did your daddy have to donate for them to give you this?”

 

“Zero,” she said, and watched him pace the small office. “I heard they were moving the anthropology professors into the new building on the quad, and I knew they weren’t redoing the upper floors until next year, so I brought some stuff up one day and they never moved it out.”

 

He’d moved from the bookshelf she’d lined her textbooks on over to the blackboard on which she’d outlined the research paper she was currently working on. “What’s this?”

 

“It’s for my Women in Media class,” she explained. “Anthro.”

 

“I thought you were Poli Sci,” he said, not turning around.

 

“I am,” she said. “It’s an elective.” She felt her throat tighten a bit. It was a rather personal class after everything she and her mother had been through in the last year and a half, and she’d decided to take it for that reason. After getting dragged through the mud in the comments section of every news outlet, major and minor, she’d wanted some kind of academic terminology to explain how shitty it was, and she was planning on using each of those in her paper.

 

“What’s the paper about?”

 

“Ah, it’s about the ways the daughters of politicians have been treated in the media. Chelsea Clinton versus the Obama daughters. Sexualization, demonization, idolization, all that good stuff.” There was a pause as he continued to read the board, and it made her uncomfortable. She didn’t like to have other people read her writing, especially when it felt so private. Finally, she offered, “You know, not all of us need to dress like starving artists to prove how intellectual we are.”

 

He turned to face her more quickly than she’d expected and his gaze caught her off guard. She suddenly wondered what he would look like without his hat on, and then wondered why she’d wondered, and then dismissed the whole thing completely. “This is really interesting.”

 

“Thanks,” she said, and couldn’t think of another snarky remark. He left soon after that, and she’d had to resist the urge to bang her head against the desk and keep calmly typing, because if she kept typing, that meant she hadn’t been bothered by the whole thing, and that the weird flip she’d felt when he’d looked at her hadn’t meant anything at all.

 

And then the third time. It was at a party at the football house, and she’d been on the dance floor with Cheryl when she’d started thinking about her parents. This happened sometimes, a drunk thought, and she knew from experience that it wasn’t the kind of thing that lent itself to more dancing. Instead, she’d shouted that she was going outside into Cheryl’s ear, had found a half-full bottle of champagne, and had gone to sit on the back steps of the house and drink it until she’d sufficiently distracted or calmed herself down. Veronica Lodge did not cry in public.

 

She’d had a few gulps when she heard footsteps on the porch behind her. “Alone outside the party with a bottle of champagne. Is there anything you do that isn’t on brand?”

 

She didn’t need to turn around. “Hey, Jughead.”

 

He walked down the steps and sat down next to her. She could see from his eyes that he hadn’t been smoking with the music majors in the front yard as he usually did.Archie hadn’t been with them either. He’d been dancing with Betty, spinning her around the dancefloor. Veronica had tried not to watch, but it was hard. Their happiness was like some kind of sick magnet.

 

“Where the fuck did you even get champagne at a party like this?”

 

She raised one eyebrow and took a sip. “I’ll never tell. But I’ll share, if you tell me your secrets.”

 

He gave her a wicked grin, and she wondered what the hell she was trying to get at. She wasn’t even sure she knew. “I’m game,” he said, and held out his hand.

 

She could tell he’d been drinking already, but so had she, so she laughed and handed the bottle over. “Why do you wear the hat?” She asked, and he shook his head.

 

“No questions about the hat,” he said, “or the name.” He took a long, long swig and she suddenly realized he’d probably seen Archie and Betty dancing as well.

 

“How are you?” She asked, and she could hear how abrupt the change in her tone was. The backyard suddenly seemed quiet.

 

He rested the bottle between his knees, and looked out into the darkness of the backyard. His tone was mocking. “To be honest, Veronica, I’m swell. I love seeing my best friend and my ex-girlfriend being an adorable couple. It rocks.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at his profile highlighted by the dim porch lights. “It was a dumb question. I know you loved her a lot.”

 

He shrugged, and held the bottle out for her without turning his head. She accepted it and took another gulp, letting the bubbles rush up through her nose. “Did you love Archie?” He asked.

 

She wasn’t shocked by the question, and she wasn’t sure why. “No.” She said, calmly. “That was a lot of things, but it wasn’t love.” She sipped again, letting herself think about Archie, and his strong hands, and his smile, and the way he’d tucked her hair behind her ears before the first time he’d kissed her. She made herself stop thinking about those things when she put the bottle down.

 

Jughead was looking at her, and the way the shadows cast across his face, she was having a hard time reading his expression. “Have you ever been in love, Veronica?” He asked, and his tone was low.

 

She looked back at him, straight ahead and even. “I have,” she said. If she hadn’t been flushed from drinking and the heat of the night already, she felt like she might have blushed for some reason under his stare. It was penetrating. “Once. In New York.”

 

“Do you miss it?” He asked, in the same low tone.

 

She laughed and turned her face into the backyard as a cool breeze blew across the yard. “That depends,” she answered. “Do I miss the person? No. We ended badly. It was a mess. But do I miss the feeling?” She turned her face back to his and he was still staring. “Yes,” she said, and her voice was softer than she normally let it be. “All the time.”

 

They looked at each other for a while, and Veronica felt like she was thinking nothing and a hundred things at the same time. Finally, she asked, in the same stupidly soft voice, “Do you miss her?”

 

He turned his face back to profile again. “Every day,” he said, not loudly, but clearly, and distinctly.

 

They sat for a while on the steps, feeling the wind blow over them. Veronica looked at Jughead gazing into the night and thinking about Betty, and she felt a sudden pang of something like jealousy. Not jealousy for Archie, or jealousy for Jughead, really, but a jealousy for a boy who would look into the night like that when he was thinking of her.

 

She didn’t like the thought so she squelched it by finishing the champagne and standing up. “I’m heading back inside,” she said. “You coming?”

 

“Nah,” Jughead said, and pushed the hat back on his head. He didn’t look at her, so she didn’t say anything more and walked back inside.

 

She was feeling a certain kind of lonely, so when Reggie, with his broad shoulders and his brown eyes put his hand on her back by the bathroom, she didn’t pull away. And when he offered to walk her home, she accepted, and when they neared his dorm, she put her hand on his arm and looked up at him from below her eyelashes, knowing he would know what she meant.

 

They kissed for a while on his bed, and he was nice enough when she said she didn’t want to have sex that night (she wasn’t opposed to one night stands at all, but not that night),and she said she needed to go, he said, “Stay.”He said. “We don’t need to hook up. We can just sleep.”

 

“Please,” she smirked at him. “I know that’s just a ploy to get me to stay so you can try and see if I’m less prudish at 4am, or in the morning.”

 

He looked at her, his eyes looking genuinely confused. “No,” he said, “I just don’t like sleeping alone.”

 

And though that easily could have been part of the plan, Veronica felt somehow sure that it was true. _Me too_ , she thought, and so she stayed, and tried to let the way Reggie’s arm curled around her waist distract her from the way that Jughead had looked at her that night, or how he’d looked out into the darkness.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reggie said something, and Veronica laughed, throwing her head back. And Jughead watched Reggie watch Veronica laugh, and he realized Veronica had been wrong. When Reggie looked at Veronica, he was seeing her, really seeing her, maybe even more clearly than Jughead himself had until the night she had grabbed his wrist. Maybe even since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo more Reggie/Ronnie for you (just a little). Not as much banter in this one but I did try to write more Betty (I love Betty//I love all of them). 
> 
> Thank you again for all the kudos and comments! Hoping to get the next chapter up with less of a wait...

He had almost started thinking that Veronica Lodge was better than he had expected. Almost.

 

It all started that Wednesday at lunch. She had disengaged from the conversation and was texting someone with a slight smirk on her face, and he was watching her and trying to think of the best way to describe her eyes. He’d reread the first few chapters and had realized he hadn’t said a word about them.

 

“Ronnie,” Betty said, and Veronica looked up. Betty raised her eyebrows at her expectantly, and Veronica raised one back. “Who’re you texting?” Her tone was playful.

 

Veronica smiled with all her teeth. “Nobody,” she said in the same tone, and put her phone back in her purse.

 

“Okay,” said Betty, her voice indicating that she did her one bit. “Jughead, how’s the novel going?”

 

He would have forgot the entire thing if it weren’t for two days later, at dinner. He walked over to the table and Archie, Betty, and Veronica were already engrossed in conversation.

 

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Archie was saying. “Reggie’s arrogant, but he’s not a bad guy.”

 

“Reggie Mantle’s a complete imbecile,” said Jughead as he pulled out his chair and sat down next to Veronica. “Why do we care?”

 

“Ronnie’s got a da-ate,” Betty sang, looking at Veronica teasingly. Veronica, to her credit, did not blush like Betty or Archie or even Jughead might have.

 

“I like to do my recon,” she said, smoothing down her hair. “Can’t have another Chuck Clayton situation on my hands, can I?” In spite of her cool attitude, she wouldn’t meet Jughead’s gaze.

 

“Really, Ronnie?” He asked, gaping at her. She glanced at him but looked away quickly and played with her gold bracelets. “Reggie?”

 

“Aw, see, it even sounds nice together,” Betty beamed.

 

“I know he’s not the smartest tool in the shed,” Veronica said. “But I have plenty of brains for the both of us.” She stood up. “I’m getting more seltzer. Anybody want something?”

 

“Don’t be so harsh on her,” Betty said to him, as soon as Veronica got out of earshot. “I think it’ll be good for her. She hasn’t been gone out with anyone since Chuck, and we all know how that turned out. Reggie’s not so bad.”

 

Jughead stared at her in disbelief. “Yes, he is.” He turned to Archie, who was leaned back in his seat with his arm draped over the back of Betty’s chair. “Back me up here, dude.”

 

Archie grinned and shook his head. “Sorry, man. I’m not getting involved.”

 

Veronica came back to the table. “Okay, let’s talk about something important. What are we doing this weekend?”

 

She wouldn’t look at Jughead for the rest of the meal.

 

He felt angry, shaken, and he couldn’t say why. As Betty and Veronica discussed which parties were happening where, _I thought Reggie Mantle only looked at you. I thought he didn’t see you_.

 

But he couldn’t say that out loud, it felt lame, and he didn’t know if she’d remember saying it at all. So he sat their in stony silence, and when he got home, he deleted the paragraph he’d started to write about the difference between Veronica’s two types of smiles. She wasn’t different from anyone else.

 

Archie, in a cautious way, tried to talk to him about girls that night. He’d been doing this periodically since the breakup with Betty, asking him if he had his eye on anyone else, and encouraging him to get back out there and meet other girls.

 

What Archie didn’t understand was that for Jughead, there were no other girls. There hadn’t been any other girls before Betty, and there hadn’t been any sense. He didn’t just _feel_ that way about people, the same way Archie and Veronica did. Betty was special, and Betty was gone. _The great tragedy of his youth,_ he called it as he wrote about it that night, after shutting Archie down and clapping his headphones over his ears. He deleted the sentence. It felt too self-indulgent.

 

He didn’t think too hard about why he was so angry about Veronica and Reggie. Reggie was the antithesis of everything he stood for. Veronica was drawing him closer to their group, boom, done, anger. Knots in his stomach that grew tighter. He typed faster and harder, and turned his music up. He hadn’t written anything productive by the end of the night.

 

 

 

They were at a party that Saturday night which had moved mostly outside into the balmy mid-September air. Jughead was outside with Archie and some of the other music guys and members of the club soccer team, passing around a joint. He was letting the smoke fill up his lungs and lift him up, slowing his mind down, enjoying the release. He looked across the party and saw Reggie and Veronica talking to each other by the railing of the porch, illuminated by the porch lights. Reggie said something, and Veronica laughed, throwing her head back. And Jughead watched Reggie watch Veronica laugh, and he realized Veronica had been wrong. When Reggie looked at Veronica, he was seeing her, really seeing her, maybe even more clearly than Jughead himself had until the night she had grabbed his wrist. Maybe even since.

 

Reggie said something to Veronica, and she leaned in and turned her head so he could say something into her ear. Her hand was on his arm. As she looked out, her eyes met Jughead’s and the sly smile which had been on her red lips dropped off. Her face was expressionless, and her eyes were unreadable. Dark and deep, and giving nothing away. Jughead felt jolted and shaken to his core. He felt like the temperature had suddenly dropped fifteen degrees. He felt like her gaze had frozen him.

 

Then Veronica leaned back and turned to Reggie with the smile back on her face and the moment passed. Archie tapped his arm. “Jug, you good?”

 

Jughead felt oddly dazed, and he pushed his hat around on his head as he turned back to Archie. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine." He took a deep breath. "Want to pass it over here?”

 

They headed back inside a few minutes later. Veronica and Reggie were on the dancefloor together, and Jughead tried to look past them. They didn’t matter. Veronica’s fingers were curled into Reggie’s hair. It didn’t matter.

 

 

 

He parsed out his anger lying in bed that night, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. Why had that moment in the yard jolted him so much? Was it just because he hated Reggie that much?

 

He decided, ultimately, that he felt like he’d been fooled. Maybe the word wasn’t fooled, maybe it was tricked. Maybe it was betrayed. That she had come into his life and messed everything up, turned everything upside down, with Archie and Betty and everything, and by the time he’d finally been about to think she was different, been about to think that she wasn’t just expensive clothes and champagne, she’d revealed that she was exactly what he had thought she was from the start. Superficial, silly. The kind of girl who goes on dates with Reggie Mantle. Not the kind of person who he had thought would sit with him on a porch while Betty and Archie danced together inside. She was not somebody to trust.

 

He was glad he hadn’t let her further in.

 

 

 

The next few weeks were painful. As Archie and Betty settled into their new relationship, it was almost annoying how normal it seemed, how close to the status quo from before, how they had almost been ready this whole time for this. He’d always known, at the back of his head, that Betty was too perfect for him, and that Archie was too good to be his friend. Having it confirmed hurt like a toothache.

 

And Veronica. If she had been avoiding his eyes that night at dinner, it had only been worse since the night in the backyard. On the surface, it was all the same, clever banter and witty comebacks, but it felt emptier. He told himself he didn’t care, but he watched her and Reggie walk into breakfast together and it twinged. It made him feel alone.

 

He spent a lot of time by himself. He wrote, of course, a lot, not the novel, that was stalling, but several short stories, some good stuff. His professor liked them, though she noted the tone was bleaker than usual. Two days after the party, he impulsively applied to a two-day writing conference in New York over the five-day weekend they had in mid-October, knowing it was probably too late and they weren’t accepting any more applicants. Doing something felt good. The idea of getting out felt good.

 

He was surprised, though, when he got an acceptance email two and a half weeks later, studying with Betty and Veronica in the library. “Congratulations!” Betty said as excitedly as she could in a whisper. Then she paused. “You don’t look very happy.”

 

He was, in fact, frowning at the computer screen. “They don’t provide housing. That’s absurd.” He looked up at Betty. “I can’t afford to stay three nights in New York. And it’s this weekend, I don’t even know where I would find a place to stay.”

 

“You can stay with us,” Veronica said, not looking up from the article she was highlighting. “There’s some big Lodge Industries meeting on Friday that my mom and I need to be at, so we’re renting an apartment for the weekend. There’s a spare bedroom, I think, or you can have the couch.” She turned the page.

 

“That’s perfect, then!” Betty said, turning back to Jughead with a smile.

 

“No offense, Veronica,” said Jughead drily, “But is Reggie coming? The idea of hanging out with him for three days sounds worse than selling my kidney for a hotel room.”

 

“Reggie and I broke up two nights ago,” she said, blithely, like it was the weather. Jughead blinked. “You’re right, by the way, he’s not too smart.”

 

She looked up at him, looking him full in the face for what felt like the first time in weeks. “What?” She asked and he realized he was grinning.

 

“Nothing,” he said, and then, “I’m always right.”

 

She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, Jones.” Then she went back to highlighting. Betty smiled and shook her head and turned back to her chemistry notes.

 

Jughead tried to work on his most recent story, but found he had nothing to say.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” he finished, “I’m not my dad. And you’re not yours. And yeah, maybe it’s not as easy for you and me to be good as it is for people like Archie and Betty. But we’re trying. And I think that’s worth a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh so sorry it's taken so long for me to post this!! Less banter more angst this time. Thank you for comments and kudos, they are always so appreciated!

When she’d first got back to New York, Veronica had been exhilarated, excited, feeling the rush of the city and the traffic and the lights in her veins. She’d spent the first night out with her mom, going to their favorite place for dinner, and then walking around the city at night, stretching her legs. There had been stares in the restaurant, but they were used to stares, and it wasn’t nearly so bad as a year ago. Veronica realized all over again how much she missed it.

 

Jughead had arrived the next morning, and she’d barely had time to show him the guest bedroom of the apartment before she and Hermione had to run out to the first meeting of the day, but she couldn’t help but smile at the way Jughead had looked critically around the apartment, taking it all in. It seemed funny to see him there, like two different parts of her past running into each other. She didn’t mind.

 

Then the meetings had happened, and then the dinner. And now Veronica was sad and angry and tired, and just wanted to go back to Riverdale and curl up in her dorm room bed while Betty watched Gilmore Girls on Netflix in the background. She’d called a cab back from the restaurant, skipping the after-dinner drinks, and had washed the makeup and tears off her face once she got back. She’d been sitting on the couch in the living room for the past half hour, watching the shadows grow long as the sunset and the electric lights of the city replaced them, and she thought about everything. She thought about her mother and her father for a while, and she cried again, so she thought about something else.

 

She thought about Reggie, a lot, and she wondered if she’d made the right decision. He’d asked her to stay that first night, and she’d said yes, and he kept asking her to stay and the light in his eyes when he looked at her had made her say yes every time. That was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? A boy who looked at her the way Archie looked at Betty. The way Jughead had stared into the backyard. But it hadn’t been enough, or maybe it had been too much. Reggie saw the world simply, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. Veronica, to him, had been all good. And for some reason, she’d run from that. She’d acted blasé about the breakup, but it had sucked, sucked to see Reggie’s normally exuberant smile around her fade and then drop off, and it had sucked that he still looked at her like she was the sun even after she closed the door.

 

When she’d returned to the dorm, she’d sat on the bed and cried, and Betty had rubbed her back. “Don’t beat yourself up, Ronnie,” she’d said. “We can’t always be what someone else wants us to be.”

 

Veronica had looked up at her and Betty had smiled. “That’s what you told me when I broke up with Jughead, remember?”

 

Veronica’s train of thought was interrupted by the door opening and she blinked back tears ferociously. She was about to call “Mom?” when she heard Jughead’s voice. “Veronica?”

 

“Hey, Jughead,” she called, and she was appalled that her voice sounded creaky with tears.

 

She heard him make his way through the dark kitchen and his silhouette appeared in the living room doorway. “Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine,” she said, staring straight ahead. She did not want to cry in front of Jughead Jones.

 

He walked over to the couch and she felt him take in her messy ponytail, her bare face, her simple leggings and t-shirt, which she was sure were thrown into even greater contrast by the semi-darkness. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but she felt the leather sofa dip as he sat down next to her, a little bit away. “I mean, something’s clearly up,” he said, and she could tell he was not sure how to handle the situation. “Do you want to call Betty? Your mom?”

 

She couldn’t help herself from snorting sarcastically at that suggestion. “I’m not talking to my mom.”

 

Jughead didn’t say anything and Veronica started babbling, trying to fill the silence. “This whole day has been a mess.” She laughed and wiped at her eyes. “I mean, those men on the board, they’re all so condescending to me, and to my mom. Like I’m important because I’m my dad’s daughter, but also I’m a kid so it doesn’t matter. They talk over my head. And nothing they were saying has convinced me that my dad isn’t still doing stupid criminal things, and if it gets found out, he’s going to spend longer in jail, and he’s already going to be there so long, and…”

 

She realized she hadn’t taken a breath in a while, so she inhaled deeply and tried not to let the breath catch in her throat. “And my mom is going upstate to visit him tomorrow. And he doesn’t want me to go.” She looked up at the ceiling and blinked back tears.

 

After a pause, Jughead asked, quietly, “Why not?”

 

She laughed shakily. “I don’t know. My mom says its because he doesn’t want me to see him in prison. But who knows. I don’t know who he is anymore. I don’t know that I want to see him.”

 

She could feel Jughead’s eyes on her, even in the darkness. She didn’t know what it was, whether it was the twilight of the city, or the fact that Jughead had, uncharacteristically, not said much of anything, but she kept talking, words spilling out of her. “I mean, he’s my father, and I love him, but he’s not who I always thought he was. He’s not a good person, Jughead. And it makes me wonder…it makes me wonder if I’m not a good person either.” She paused and bit her lip. “I mean, I try, I do, but I wasn’t always trying, and people like Betty, and people like Archie, being good seems so natural to them. And I can’t even manage to not break Reggie fucking Mantle’s heart.” She realized that tears were starting to come down her face and she reached up to wipe them away, trying to keep her breathing even. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to dump this all on you, it’s just…”

 

She felt Jughead slide closer to her on the sofa and he put his arm around her, slightly awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do. “Ronnie, it’s okay,” he said. “I mean I don’t know about that Reggie stuff, and I thank god every day that I don’t, but I can promise you, your dad doesn’t make you who you are.” His voice was hard and firm and almost angry as he said this. “That’s not how it works.” She made a vague noise of protest, but he kept talking. “Trust me,” he said, “I know.”

 

Then he told her about his father, and about the Serpents, and about the drinking, and his mom and his sister, and the shouting and the anger, and how he’d slept on Archie’s floor for a year and a half in high school. “So,” he finished, “I’m not my dad. And you’re not yours. And yeah, maybe it’s not as easy for you and me to be good as it is for people like Archie and Betty. But we’re trying. And I think that’s worth a lot.”

 

His arm was still around her, his hand warm on her arm. She leaned into his shoulder, against his flannel shirt. “Thank you, Jughead,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry about your dad. That really sucks.”

 

He half shrugged. “It’s fine.”

 

She smiled wryly. “No, it’s not. But that’s okay.”

 

“Yeah,” he said, and she could hear the hint of a smile in his voice too.

 

They sat there for a while in the darkness as it grew darker and deeper. The sounds of traffic went by, and Jughead rubbed his thumb in slow circles on the skin of her upper arm. She closed her eyes, and let herself feel present with him, his body warm next to hers. She could feel herself drifting slowly off to sleep, the way she was always tired after she’d cried. Through the haze, she felt Jughead turn his head to look at her, but she didn’t open her eyes. He leaned his head back against hers, and she smiled without thinking about why.

 

The door opened for a second time that night, suddenly, and she saw through closed eyelids the kitchen light go on. She opened her eyes and sat up almost as quickly as Jughead retracted his arm. “Mija?” She heard her mother call.

 

“I’ll be right there, Mom,” she called back, and she turned to Jughead, who was pulling out his phone, slightly awkward again. As she stood up, he looked at her, eyes blue on hers brown. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t know what, so she just held his gaze for a second, and hoped that was enough. Then she turned into the light to talk to her mother.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happened in the elevator. He was explaining, pontificating really, on why Auden was undervalued, and she was asking him questions, trying to poke holes in his argument, and they were both too tired from dancing and drinking and everything to be having this kind of conversation, and her whole body was facing his, and her eyes were so focused on his face, that even as he was forming another sentence, he thought, I should kiss her. Then he stopped and re-thought it again. I should kiss Veronica Lodge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I am so so sorry that it has taken me so long to post this chapter. There were a lot of things happening but I was also just having some writer's block, so I hope this is okay... There's another half-formed scene in my head that goes at the end that I might add later, but here it is at last, for better or for worse! Thank you again for all the lovely comments and kudos, they are what got me back on the horse to write this again!
> 
> Oh, also, Jughead's comment about Footloose was snagged from New Girl :)

He had never really wanted Veronica Lodge, he was realizing. Or maybe wanting Veronica Lodge had never really occurred to him. Or, maybe, it was that he had never really allowed himself to want her in the first place.

 

He was sitting at a high table in the jazz club she’d dragged him to after the closing readings of the conference. He gazed across the room at her ordering drinks for them from the bar, her black hair falling over her shoulder blades that were exposed by the cut of her dress, and he thought of the first time he’d seen her. _Dangerous_. Then he thought _fuck_. 

 

She made her way back over to him and he tried his hardest to watch her walk over without looking like he was watching her, trying not to check her out while also realizing how beautiful Veronica Lodge was and wondering why had he never realized this before.

 

“Whiskey neat for you,” she said, handing him a glass, “and Campari and soda for me, of course.”

 

“But of course,” he echoed sarcastically, and took a long drink when she raised an eyebrow at him while sipping from the straw of her drink. There was some kind of electricity emanating from Veronica tonight, and there had been since she’d picked him up from the conference in a car, giddy from the “retail therapy” she claimed to have undertaken earlier in the day. He tried to push this aside and set his drink back down. “So, a jazz club. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to pull off the promise of somewhere that we’d both like that wasn’t Pop’s, but you managed.”

 

She laughed. “You need to have more faith in me, Jones. Besides,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially, “it has the added benefit of not being somewhere where anyone our age will ever come, meaning the odds of me seeing someone I need to awkwardly avoid are greatly diminished.”

 

He looked at her. “There’s really nobody from your old friends you want to see?” He realized it sounded potentially hypocritical coming from him, a self proclaimed loner, but seeing her friendships with Kevin and Betty and even Cheryl, he was surprised.

 

She looked down and paused. “It’s hard for me to explain. You know how I’ve told you I wasn’t a good person back then? Well, it kind of feels like the friendships I have match that. They were all as toxic as I was, even my big romantic relationship.” She looked back up at him, her gaze level but serious. “That’s why I’m so grateful to have Betty. I feel like, that friendship, and her— she just helps me become a better person, or at least try to be.” She laughed a half laugh. “If that makes any sense.”

 

Jughead wanted to say something, to tell her how much he understood how it felt to be best friends with someone who made you want to be better, even if that could be frustrating at times, but the words were more sticking in his throat because of how much he felt she had touched on a part of him that he’d never said aloud, or even written down. Instead, he nodded, and took another sip of his drink.

 

“Oh, fuck,” Veronica said, grabbing his free hand with the same vice-like grip, and he almost choked on the drink before he was able to put it down. “Don’t look behind you, but we need to go onto the dance floor, like, now.”

 

He thought about protesting, but Veronica was on some kind of mission to pull him over to the dance floor, where mostly middle-aged couples were swaying to a slow, old, jazz song from the live band. Veronica positioned him so he was facing the bar and she was facing the stage, and put the hand that wasn’t gripping his on his shoulder. He automatically put his hand on her waist, without really thinking.

 

“I’m flattered you want to dance with me, Lodge,” he said, trying not to be distracted by how close her body was to his, and how their faces were really only a few inches apart, “but you could have just asked.”

 

Veronica didn’t look particularly amused. “Okay, I’m sorry for dragging you out here, but do you see the couple by the bar? The only ones close to our age?” He craned his neck and she stepped on his foot, hissing “don’t be so obvious!”

 

Then he did see them— a tall pale boy with glasses and poofy, messy, hair, and a shorter, curvy girl with light eyes and darker  skin. “Old friends of yours?”

 

“Unfortunately, yes,” Veronica said. “Well, actually, an old friend and the aforementioned old romantic relationship.” She shuddered. “Not the kind of people I want to run into right now.”

 

He looked at them again, more specifically, at the guy, who looked like he was one of those people who tried way too hard to be cool. “No offense, Ron, but really? Him? I don’t get your taste.”

 

Veronica looked like she wanted to step on his foot again. “No, not Adam, obviously. I was with Katie. She’s the one I really want to avoid— we were both evil, and we were evil together, and I am not going down that path again.” Jughead took this in and Veronica continued, talking more to herself than to him. “I guess they’re together now, though. Never thought Katie would go for such a hipster-wannabe, but I suppose we all change.”

 

“Well,” he said, trying to cut her out of her monologue, “What’s your plan? Are we just going to dance until they leave?”

 

“That was the idea, yes,” she said, and probably reading his nervous expression as the band started playing something more upbeat, “What, Jones, don’t like dancing?”

 

“No,” he said, “I’m from the town in Footloose.” But she smiled at him and he felt his heart beat more heavily in his chest.. He lifted his arm to twirl her around.

 

 

 

They danced until Adam and Katie left, and then for a while after, and then they drank and talked, and then they danced more, and somehow before Jughead knew it, they were leaving the club and getting in the car and holding hands the entire time. Her hand felt natural in his, and somehow made him feel very light, but every time she looked at him, something in his chest tightened. _In a good way_ , he thought, without meaning to. Nothing like snakes in his stomach.

 

It happened in the elevator. He was explaining, pontificating really, on why Auden was undervalued, and she was asking him questions, trying to poke holes in his argument, and they were both too tired from dancing and drinking and everything to be having this kind of conversation, and her whole body was facing his, and her eyes were so focused on his face, that even as he was forming another sentence, he thought _I should kiss her_. Then he stopped and re-thought it again. _I should kiss Veronica Lodge_.

 

He was only midway through this second thought when she kissed him.

 

It was a soft kiss, her lips just pressing up against his mid sentence, cutting him off. His eyes closed, a reflex reaction, and he inhaled sharply, taking in the moment and the jasmine scent of her perfume. He felt her pull back a second later, but he kept his eyes shut. “Veronica,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

 

“Just because,” she said, answering his unasked question. “For fun.” And then he leaned back towards her and she leaned into him. 

 

This kiss was deeper, and he moved his hand to her waist to pull her closer to him, as she moved her hands up his back to do the same. The elevator dinged as they reached their floor, and without speaking, he followed her into the dark apartment and then kissed her again. Her mouth tasted like lipstick, and like Campari, and like her, and when she unzipped his coat and slid her hands up the back of his shirt, he almost shivered. She pulled back. “Is this…okay?”

 

He realized he was smiling. “Fuck, yes this is okay,” he said and as he stroked his thumb across her cheek, he felt that she was smiling too.

 


End file.
